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Humour in psychoanalytic thought and practice is often treated as though it is a kind of defence against and resistance to pain. To avoid sadness and disappointment one turns the situation into a joke. The shifting of attention away from heaviness to lightness is considered unenlightened, unhelpful and destructive to growth and deep development. This can be the case some of the time but humour can also provide an opportunity for movement, integration and insight. It can aid growth and the resolution of conflict.
Laughter, lightheartedness, awareness of the incongruity of a situation can bring into a deadlocked, hopeless, stuck position a kind of energy which is restorative, which lightens things up between two people or among members of a group. The altering of one's view, the taking in of a new perspective, is sometimes easier if it is in the form of a ‘throwaway’ remark. Some psychoanalytic professionals might argue that such kinds of change would not last or be deep enough if accomplished with such fun. It is important to make distinctions in this matter, to know what humour is being used to do: seduce, pevert, obstruct, defend against, deny or to enlarge, enjoy, make freer and so on.
I am arguing this point about humour because I want to have this lighthearted book taken seriously by psychoanalytic psychotherapists. The book was written by a practising psychiatrist who, after many years of working with couples in conflict, decided that most of the literature he had read and on which he had based his therapeutic work was not of much use. Couples got worse and worse through his treatment. This book is the result of his attempts to find ways to enable interpersonal relations to work well. The author considers and emphasises issues which are often overlooked by therapists in treating couples in serious conflict. Some of the rules are: Don't Keep The Romance Alive, Don't Fight Fair, Don't Talk About Everything, Don't Worry About What You Think Is Important. The rules a